The Boundaries Blueprint: What Recovering People-Pleasers in Leadership Need to Know
By Genevieve Retzlaff, PCC, CTPC | Grow Better Together | Vancouver, BC
If you've ever said yes to something you didn't have room for, and then spent the rest of the week resenting it, this one's for you.
I call myself a recovering people-pleaser. Not in the "aw, I'm just too nice" way people say it at parties, but in the specific, worked-hard-to-change-this way. For years, my instinct in any conflict between my own capacity and someone else's expectation was to absorb the gap myself. Say yes. Figure it out later. Keep the peace. It's a pattern I see constantly in the leaders I coach, especially women who've been rewarded their entire careers for being the reliable one, the flexible one, the one who makes things work.
Here's what I've learned, the hard way and then the coached-a-hundred-people-through-it way: balance is a moving target. It shifts every day based on your energy, your season of life, what's actually on your plate. I've had clients tell me I seem like the most "balanced" person they know, and honestly, that makes me laugh a little inside, because balance has never been something I've arrived at. It's a pursuit, not a destination.
Boundaries are different. Boundaries are something you can actually build, and once you've built them, they hold.
Why boundaries are harder than they sound.
Knowing you need a boundary and actually holding one are two completely different skills. Almost everyone I work with can tell me, cognitively, exactly what's not working in their life or their leadership. What's much harder is embodying that knowledge, turning it into an actual practice you sustain when the people around you push back.
And they will push back. That's the part nobody warns you about. The moment you stop saying yes to everything, the people who got used to your yes will notice. They'll wonder who you are now. You used to always show up, always take the extra project, always answer the late email. So when you don't, there's friction. Managing that friction, the disappointment you create simply by having a limit, is genuinely the hardest part of this work. It was the hardest part for me.
The reframe that changes everything.
The turning point for a lot of the leaders I coach is realizing that holding a boundary isn't selfish, it's actually respectful of the other person. When you don't hold a boundary because you're worried someone can't handle disappointment, you're quietly deciding they're not capable of managing their own reactions. That's not kindness. That's not giving them credit as a mature adult who can grow, adjust, and be fine.
The people in your life, your team, your family, your clients, are allowed to have a reaction to your boundary. Your job isn't to prevent that reaction. It's to let them have it, without rescuing them from it by breaking the boundary yourself. Every time you cave to spare someone a moment of disappointment, you're not protecting them. You're stunting their growth, and burning your own capacity in the process.
What this looks like in practice.
This shows up everywhere, not just in the boardroom. I think of a coaching conversation I once heard about with a woman who'd just come home from a stay at her in-laws', quietly eating food she didn't want because she didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by asking for something different. That instinct, avoid the discomfort, absorb the cost yourself, is the exact same instinct that has high-performing women in leadership taking on the overwork nobody asked them to take on.
The fix in both cases is the same: name what you need, assume the other person can handle hearing it, and offer an approach instead of an apology. "I love that you stocked the kitchen for the family, thank you. I've also got a few things I want to keep eating this week, can I run to the store?" is a boundary and a thank-you in the same breath. It costs you nothing and it doesn't require anyone to be wrong.
It gets easier. It actually does.
I won't tell you I've got this perfected. I'd put myself at about 90% of where I want to be, and that took years of small, repeated practice. But here's the honest truth: it does become second nature. The first few times you hold a boundary, it feels enormous. The hundredth time, it's just how you operate.
If overwork has become your default setting because saying no feels like a risk to your growth, your likability, or your job, that's not a personality flaw. It's a skill gap, and it's one you can close. That's the work I do inside Leadership Coaching for Women, and it's why I built Grow Better Together the way I did: not to hand you a balance you'll never quite hold, but to help you build the boundaries that let you decide, on purpose, where your energy goes.
Genevieve Retzlaff, PCC, CTPC - Founder Grow Better Together - Coach for Executives, Women & Teams - OD Consultant
About the author
Genevieve Retzlaff is the founder and CEO of Grow Better Together, a PCC-certified executive and team coach, and an organizational development consultant working with growing small and mid-size companies. If this resonates, sign up for the newsletter.
Source: this post draws on Genevieve's conversation on the Modelling Success in Action podcast with host Jessica Taylor, "Recovering People Pleaser: How Boundaries Let You Manage Your Energy."